GASS Asia 2025: Key Insights from the Global Anti-Scam Summit

Glad to be able attend the Global Anti-Scam Summit Asia 2025 in Singapore. Across two days, one theme stood out clearly: scams are no longer niche or amateur — they are professional, adaptive, and global. Here are some highlights and reflections.

The Scale of the Problem

In Singapore, digital crime now outpaces physical crime two to one.
On average, each person in Singapore loses US$1,000 to scams.
It’s no longer just the elderly — younger people are also being caught out, often by “good deals” (concert tickets, food deliveries, task scams).

The Psychology of Scams

Scams are not about how intelligent you are; they are designed for you. 94% of adults try to verify offers, yet billions are still lost.
Greed, trust, loneliness, and love are powerful levers — and scammers know how to pull them.
The impact goes beyond money: shame, withdrawal, and even self-harm are real consequences.

Technology: Weapon and Shield

AI is changing the game. Gone are the days of scam emails full of grammatical mistakes. AI now generates polished messages and can deploy psychological tactics at scale.
On the flip side, AI is being used by defenders to detect unusual activity and even “chat” with scammers — keeping them occupied and away from real victims.
Scammers also layer apps on legitimate platforms. One example: a translation tool running on top of WhatsApp, making scams seamless across languages.
Tools like WormGPT and OnlyFake (fake IDs and documents) show how innovation cuts both ways.

Collaboration and Cat-and-Mouse

Speakers broke down scams into a lifecycle: preparation (profiling, phishing kits, AI tools), deception (initiating contact and social engineering), and monetisation (laundering illicit funds). It’s a reminder that scams are structured enterprises, not random one-offs.
For years, telcos, banks, and platforms pointed fingers. Now, there’s a push toward collaboration — data sharing, APIs, and initiatives like GASA’s Global Signal Exchange.
Singapore’s own approach includes upstream blocking of scam calls/sites, tighter laws, public reporting, and education via ScamShield and the 1799 hotline. (Ironically, scammers are already spoofing calls claiming to be from the scam centre.)
It’s clear: there is no 100% tech solution. Trust, vigilance, and human awareness remain essential.

Human Cost and Unseen Victims

Behind the headlines are people trafficked into scam compounds, forced to work under duress. This hidden second layer of victims is often forgotten.
One exposé revealed a compound in the UAE with 2,000 workers running pig-butchering scams. The sophistication was chilling: real girlfriends on-site, curated social media profiles, even video calls to build trust — all leading victims toward fake investment platforms.
Groups like the Luffy crime ring show how organised, ruthless, and adaptable these networks have become.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The summit closed with more questions than answers:

How do we balance fraud prevention with user experience?
How do we build trust as effectively as scammers do?
Who draws the line of responsibility — governments, industry, or us as individuals?

Here at Security Common Sense, we believe awareness starts at home. That’s why we’ve been working on this site for a few years — to help friends and family cut through jargon, spot red flags, and talk about scams openly. If you’ve stumbled across us and find us interesting, share it with your friends and family too.

Also in This Series

This article is part of our reflections from the Global Anti-Scam Summit Asia 2025 (GASS Asia). You can read the full series here:

Together, these articles explore how scams are evolving, how they affect all of us, and what we can do to fight back.